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Primary and Secondary Sources Using Primary Resources: Teaching Guides from the Tennessee State Library and Archives DEFINITIONS OF PRIMARY SOURCES Primary Sources are first-hand accounts of an event, a life, a moment in time. They are in their original form (diaries, letters, photos, etc.) usually without explanation or interpretation. Secondary sources are often written some time after an event happened by people who were not present when the event occurred. Secondary sources are based on a variety of other sources and can include books, journal articles, textbooks, and reference sources. Historian Mary Lynn Rampolla defines [primary sources] as “materials produced by people or groups directly involved in the event or topic under consideration.” . Primary sources can include not just written documents like letters or diaries but also the material remains (e.g., tools, furniture, art, architecture, music) of a specific time and place. Primary sources are the essential building blocks for the historian's reconstruction of a moment in time. WHY USE PRIMARY SOURCES? From Library of Congress American Memory Collection: http://memory.loc.gov/learn/educators/handouts/ To develop critical thinking skills: Primary sources are snippets of history. They are incomplete and often come without context. They require students to be analytical, to examine sources thoughtfully, and to determine what else they need to know to make inferences from the materials. A high school student states, “I learned that in order to do history, one must be objective and be able to look at a puzzle of historical events and put them together in order.” To understand that all history is local: Local history projects require students to “tell their own stories” about familiar people, events, and places. Memories from an adult’s perspective provide a rich glimpse of history that is not available in a textbook. What evolves is the sense that world history is also personal family history, which provides a compelling context for student understanding. An elementary/middle school teacher reports that “finding information about topics that are of importance to our local history is invaluable. Students are excited by the fact that our local history is archives nationally. This gives their immediate cultural area importance in their eyes.” 3. To acquire empathy for the human condition: Primary sources help students relate personally to events of the past, gaining a deeper understanding of history as a series of human events. A high school teacher reported that, “In sharing the Whitman hospital letters, I clearly saw a sheen of tears in students’ eyes and noted an avid interest in Civil War soldiers as ‘people,’ not simply as pallid historical figures.” 4. To consider different points of view in analysis: In analyzing primary sources, students move from concrete observations and facts to inferences about the materials. “Point of view” is one of the most important inferences that can be drawn. What is the intent of the speaker, of the photographer, of the musician? How does that color one’s interpretation or understanding of the evidence? A high school teacher states, “Discovering that two people may see the same primary source differently creates a kind of dissonance that opens up the meaning of the source and creates new understanding in learners.” Arguing about the past makes it more personal, more relevant! 5. To understand the continuum of history: Students come to understand that we all participate in making history every day, leaving behind primary source documentation that scholars years hence may examine as a record of “the past.” The immediacy of first-person accounts of events is compelling to most students. A teacher comments: “Comparisons of events of the past to events our students are engaged in daily helps to bring ‘history’ to the present and make it ‘live’ for our students.” Using Primary Resources: Teaching Guides from the Tennessee State Library and Archives Sources for Primary Research Note: Provenance (chain of ownership) must be established for personal belongings. Date and authority of sources must be established, particularly in the case of items marked with an asterisk. advertisements financial records & audits political cartoons advertising brochures fishing licenses posters applications folk songs postcards audio recordings furniture pottery autobiographies* government documents pre-nuptial agreements autographs gradebooks press releases automobile titles graduation programs professional licenses award certificates greeting cards programs of events bank records Halloween costumes quilts Bible records hand-crafted articles receipts bills of sale handbills report cards biographies* hardware & tools reports* birth announcements historic documents recipe cards & publications birth certificates home movies research notes & files blueprints hunting licenses sales slips & receipts business records ID badges schedules calendars insurance certificates school assignments/tests cemetery records interviews* school transcripts census records jewelry scrapbooks checks kitchen tools & gadgets sermons check registers land records sheet music children’s clothing legal documents shipping documents christening records letters shoes, boots, hats Christmas letters magazines* shopping lists church certificates maps, charts, diagrams sketchbooks church bulletins/records marriage announcements song lyrics clinical case reports marriage licenses speeches clothing medals spirituals coins medical records stamps Congressional records membership cards tax records contracts memoranda team statistics court records military records telegrams credit card receipts minutes of meetings telephone memos daybooks mortgages theatre programs death certificates music scores timetables deeds news film footage titles to vehicles diaries & journals newsletters tombstones diplomas newspapers* tools directions notebooks toys and games divorce papers operator’s certificates trading cards driver’s licenses oral history* transportation records drawings & paintings organizational charts travel & history brochures e-mail parish records trophies election certificates patents video recordings embroidery personnel folders weapons & equipment ephemera (menus, tickets) photographs wills fashion artifacts play programs writing implements (pens, field notes poetry nibs, inkwells, etc.) films political campaign items yearbooks Using Primary Resources: Teaching Guides from the Tennessee State Library and Archives Reading Historically . Thinking Like an Historian Historians do the following: A. Sourcing – analyzing the resource: Who said so? Where did this come from? 1. Teach students to stop and source before reading! 2. Consider a document’s attribution (the name of the author or editor and how the document came into being) before doing anything else: a. Read the headnote, if any; b. Look at all the source information, including date, publisher; c. Note the attribution, if any; d. Consider the genre (book, diary, newspaper, speech); e. Set it in historic context – time and region; f. Verify provenance (records documenting authenticity or history of ownership); g. Study the Table of Contents and Index. B. Contextualizing – imagining the setting, making it visual 1. Create a picture in your head: what did the original scene look like? 2. The available technology affects the way information is produced and delivered – What things were different in those days? How might that matter? 3. Who are the others thinking and writing on this subject – the people talking about it? C. Corroborating – cross-checking: Who else says so? 1. Inter-textual reading – looking for corroboration/confirmation. 2. What do other sources say? 3. Where would we find other perspectives on this issue? (e.g., after the destruction of the USS Maine, what was on the front page in Havana? in Madrid?) 4. How does other material support, oppose, or extend your understanding of the subject? D. Close reading – bias, tone, implied meaning: What does it say? How does it say it? Ruminations on textbooks: 1. History books speak with such authority, they suggest that their analysis of history is not, in fact, only one of many possible interpretations. Teachers need to become comfortable with uncertainty – you don’t have to be the only authority in the classroom. It’s perfectly okay to say, “I don’t know.” Students are delighted to hear that experts disagree. Let your class get into the fray themselves after consulting original documents. 2. Every text is the product of a human voice. All are biased in some way. All are incomplete: their very attempts to become unbiased make them incomplete; their efforts to meet national standards make them incomplete; their efforts not to offend anyone make them incomplete! 3. Textbooks tend to repeat information from earlier textbooks – even historical myths – rather than to draw from current research. Contemporary historical thinking rarely makes its way into textbooks, which rarely admit that any controversy exists in the interpretation of historic figures and events. Adapted from an exercise by Wineburg, Martin, & Monte-Sano – Stanford Education Group Using Primary Resources: Teaching Guides from the Tennessee State Library and Archives Helping Students Begin to Analyze Primary Sources Author 1. Who created the source and why? 2. Was this record created through an impulsive act, a routine transaction, or a deliberate process? Is it an officially-sanctioned version of the event? 3. Did the recorder have firsthand knowledge of the
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